


february

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Self-Harm, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 20:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: tyler knows that this is isn’t good for him, but he lies to himself anyways and pretends that everything is fine, and that things with jenna aren’t awful.or, the story of how a year can completely change who tyler is.tw: mentions of self harm and alcoholism





	february

**Author's Note:**

> tyler’s birthday is in june just because i really needed to fucking vent and it felt better to write it this way. i also have nothing against jenna, sometimes a guy just really has to vent. also, since tyler’s life is kinda based around mine, i’m telling you that it’s not right to act like this. think about your actions and seek help if need be.
> 
> thank you to harrowinghowell for being my josh thru all the ups and downs of life. also thank you to icosmics for being so wonderful and letting me complain to you every once in a while

**february 2018**

tyler thinks that he loves jenna.

talking to jenna and being jenna’s best friend is so relaxing and it feels better than dealing with his own in real life friends. friends who judge him for dumping anne, because they don’t see what’s happening behind the scenes. anna wasn’t good for tyler. she was four years older than him and she would constantly guilt him for everything. he’s in his freshman year, no one really makes good decisions in their freshman year.

people would also think that they’re lesbians, because tyler doesn’t really pass for shit as a boy and anna just passes too well for a girl. that was the only basis for his relationship anyways, because they don’t really have anything else in common. they just met at gsa and hit it off.

when he tells this to jenna, tyler can’t help but feel safe knowing that there’s someone who will care for him even if they’re almost two thousand miles apart. it’s unfortunate that jenna lives in minnesota while he’s in oregon.

jenna tells tyler that she likes him the day after valentine’s day. it was the happiest day of his life.

**march 2018**

tyler brags about jenna any chance he gets, especially at gsa. he feels happy with her, because it’s the honeymoon phase where everything is perfect and nothing is wrong in their relationship.

the school calls his mother after he makes a suicide joke to someone he used to be close to. he cries so much and has an absolute meltdown. eventually, tyler gets released and he spends his lunch period (and even his fourth period) calling jenna. 

he’s grateful that she’s there for him, and tyler just feels even closer to jenna - that if they can get through this they can get through anything.

tyler also meets a friend online named josh through twitter, and they automatically bond without any of the awkward hellos that most internet friends go through at first. 

josh becomes his best friend.

**april 2018**

it’s peaceful in april. he enjoys going through life with jenna and josh by his side, even though minnesota and ohio are far away. whatever, they’re metaphorically by his side. 

he feels like a champion for knowing what a metaphor is, internally telling his mom to screw off for telling him that his grades were “already ruined” even though he has three b’s and 2 a’s.

the only things that tyler has to worry about are the introduction of mla format essays and pretending not to act weird everytime someone calls him danielle.

danielle joseph just sounds so fucking odd and foreign to him and his friends, but all of his family tell him it’s a lovely name.

tyler just wants to vomit thinking about that, so he distracts himself by talking to the groupchat with jenna and josh.

**may 2018**

he relapses. 

jenna tells him that her computer is getting taken away at the end of the month because she has to return it to the school. she doesn’t have a phone because her parents don’t trust her at all, even though she’s fourteen and about to go into high school next year. well, technically she’s still gonna be in middle school because that’s how minnesota schools work apparently, but the credits from her freshman year are counted towards her diploma. so technically, she /is/ going to be a high schooler. 

but that’s not the point.

he just cries a lot because he’s gonna miss jenna so much. he’s known jenna for two years now, and it’ll be a really lonely summer without her. his summers have always been lonely, because he’s always been single and no one really wants to hang out. tyler was hoping that they could spend the summer together videochatting, but the news of this just breaks him.

josh attempts to comfort him, but to no avail. 

so he cuts himself for the first time since his father told him that being a boy is just delusion and copying those online youtubers back in early 2017.

he doesn’t really watch trans youtubers, but that wasn’t really a good time to bring it up.

he’s in the shower at 3 am when it happens, and everyone has gone to bed. (including josh, and especially jenna because her parents literally turn off the wifi at nine o’clock her time - seven in oregon)

his mother’s razor is just on the shower caddy next to his shampoo. it taunts him while he’s washing hair, and he just stares at the razor while the water rains down. he doesn’t notice that the water starts running cold. the itch on his arm yelling at him to just _ cut already _ overflowing his thoughts.

so he does.

three cuts on each arm, three cuts on each leg, and another three cuts on his arm just because there’s space there, and it’s not littered in scars already. the number three is for each month that she won’t have internet.

he was gonna be two years clean in a few weeks, but it didn’t matter to him anymore. his past cuts have already turned into white, not as noticeable as they used to be. tyler still wears bracelets just because.

he doubles up on the bracelets the next morning, and if his mother notices when she drives him to school, she doesn’t say a single word.

**june 2018**

jenna doesn’t say happy birthday to him because she doesn’t have internet. but her sister margie does (because she’s almost eighteen and doesn’t have as many restrictions), and she sends him a message asking for his address just because they’re in colorado and they can send a postcard for his birthday.

when he receives the postcard in the mail, he gushes to josh about it and tapes it on his ceiling just so that his parents don’t find it and read it.

he came out to his dad as bi, and he thinks that it’s just a phase because he has friends who were lesbians but eventually settled down with a nice guy. his mom found a previous valentine that he was gonna give to a past girlfriend for valentine’s, and she wasn’t happy with the excuse that they’re just friends and friends could give each other valentines. she even threatened to call the poor girl’s parents to get the truth, and when he grabbed his phone to distract him, she yelled at him and said that he was just probably trying to get her parents to lie to her about it.

the call never happened, thank goodness, but he really doesn’t want to go through that again, so he just tapes the letter to his ceiling.

**july 2018**

he gets into a fight with josh.

it’s over something dumb, really. it’s about how josh supported someone problematic and he couldn’t really tell that it was just sarcasm coming from tyler.

so they friend-breakup, tyler’s depression spirals and he just wishes that jenna were here with him.

luckily jenna goes online a few nights after, while he’s watching the office. 

she says her parents went to bed and that she got into the home computer.

they talk for the longest time even though they’re so sleep deprived. jenna even has the balls to send josh a fuck you message before blocking him.

tyler appreciates that jenna hasn’t forgotten about him. he promises that he’ll one day save up enough money so that they can meet up.

he doesn’t tell her that he relapsed back in may though. it’s not relevant. besides, her talking to him just stops him from wanting to relapse again. 

**august 2018**

tyler has to fly to california for his uncle’s wedding. he doesn’t want to. he’s gonna miss one of his favorite bands performing in portland while he’s off in california.

his mother’s also been yelling at him to just _ wear a fucking dress or skirt _ , but tyler isn’t having any of it. he even goes to buy his own formal longlseeves and slacks just to feel more _ masculine _, but it results in more arguments.

they come to a compromise of sorts. tyler will wear the slacks but he has to wear a feminine blouse. tyler doesn’t really like that, but if it will stop his mother from yelling then it’s fine.

jenna wishes him good luck at the wedding, because she has an hour to spare while her parents aren’t home. it cheers him up temporarily.

the wedding wasn’t really spectacular. it was a quick ten minute thing, along with a bunch of photos being taken, and tyler just has to force a smile pretending he isn’t so uncomfortable with shoulder length hair and this _ feminine _ look.

except things go to shit once it’s dinner time. all of the tables are reserved where they can’t sit, and this mean woman takes away his brother’s bubble gun. his mother argues with her telling her that she can keep it in her purse while they’re eating (especially since his brother has severe food allergies and once the bubble gun ends up in her hands, his mom can’t really trust where it’s gonna go), but the woman doesn’t care. 

tyler wants to cry when his brother starts crying. but he doesn’t, because he has to put on a nice pretty face at this wedding. his brother gets to go back to the hotel with mom, but she coaxes him to stay with his father and talk to all of his cousins.

he talks to his older cousin rose for a while, and eventually he trusts her enough to come out to her as trans and bi (even though he’s discovered that he’s pan now, just because bi is just easier to explain). she supports him, and he feels much better about being with his religious family.

**september 2018**

sophomore year rolls around the corner. he get deadnamed and misgendered six times on the first day even though he tells his teachers beforehand that he’s not a fucking girl.

he doesn’t like sophomore year. his french teacher is too lazy to do jackshit, and geometry makes him want to tear his guts out.

this is also the time that he makes up with josh, because they apologize to each other and talk things through. it’s also the time that jenna introduces him to her classmate, a boy named luke.

when jenna and josh get too busy for tyler to facetime them, he finds himself calling luke every day after school. it makes sophomore year feel like it’s gonna be alright, and if tyler thinks that he has feelings for luke then he doesn’t say jack shit about it.

until he does and suddenly the balance of the universe has collapsed.

fights break out between the group and tyler just finds himself crying so much when jenna gives him the ultimatum to choose between her and luke. but tyler doesn’t wanna do that, because they’re all _ friends _ and friends shouldn’t do that to each other.

he breaks it off with jenna and luke. tyler cries to josh about all of this wishing that his life wasn’t so awful.

this time, he doesn’t turn to cutting. he takes a bottle of vodka from the cabinet downstairs instead.

**october 2018**

october is a sad month.

tyler focuses on his studies and talking to josh to try to heal the pain. surprisingly enough, he talks to jenna again and they’ve managed to be friends.

he also gets a cheeky haircut without telling his mom and it’s another happy occasion, even if his family tells him that it’s _ too fucking short _.

but tyler still feels sad, and he vents to jenna about not being good enough for anything. it was during history, and he didn’t feel like working on anything. his teacher won’t care, tyler’s managed to get into his good graces.

so he sneaks onto skype and tells jenna about how he feels worthless, and too damn stupid to even deserve jenna.

jenna also starts ranting to him at this time, and before he knows it - they’re back together and the sad tears turn into happy ones.

the smile on his face doesn’t leave until the end of the day.

josh congratulates him when tyler tells him about the news.

**november 2018**

his parents force him to sign up for a college fair because they want him to go college even though he’s been adamant that it’s a waste of time to pay for it and land in debt.

that’s when he realizes that he needs to go to college, because he can’t handle being in high school classes with horribly immature classmates. there’s a program at his school where he can take college courses in order to get high school credit and that he doesn’t have to even be on the high school campus.

he thinks he’ll be ready for it, after all there are kids his age doing the same thing.

tyler tells josh and jenna the news over skype and they’re very happy for him.

unfortunately, he has to start driver’s ed so that he can actually take himself to the college campus to take these classes. 

he’s never really wanted to drive, but he starts the program anyways.

**december 2018**

driver’s ed is the most torturous thing in the world, tyler realizes. he complains about it so much, and nobody's really there for him except josh and jenna. jenna just gives him an “i’m sorry,” but josh actually kinda motivates him.

he wants to shred his permit because it has his fucking legal name but he doesn’t have access to a shredder, so that stops him for now. the teachers just continually deadname and misgender him, because they’re conservative asshats.

but luckily he has josh. jenna’s off to florida for winter break and although her parents gave her a phone, they literally cut her data out because they’re so hellbent on “family time,” even though their family is in shreds.

josh is stressed out about school though. he actually has the luxury to be homeschooled, but when he went to california he got so behind in math and he barely understands it. somehow, tyler has a 95 in geometry, so he offers to log in and do his math homework for him.

by the end of winter break, tyler is three chapters ahead of his math class and he can just chill out in class. tyler doesn’t mention florida and they go back to being all lovey dovey.

**january 2019**

tyler goes shopping in the new year because there’s a massive clearance sale at his favorite store. he finds a shirt that’s in jenna’s size and he begs his mom to buy it for him so that he could mail it out for her birthday in a few weeks.

she gives in, and tyler is so happy that he starts crying.

he pays his friends $8 for a flat rate box so that he could mail it and when jenna sends him pictures wearing it, he sets it as his homescreen.

finals week also comes around the corner, and luckily he aces most of his finals.

except for french. he gets a 64 for in french but luckily his grade only drops to a 91, and although his mother is pissed, he doesn’t care because his gpa is still pretty good and jenna and josh are there for him.

but suddenly jenna fights with him about how she puts so much effort into the relationship and that tyler doesn’t seem to care about that. tyler doesn’t feel like jenna puts work into this, with all the excuses of “i’m busy,” or that her parents have cut something off.

tyler caves into her guilt tripping and apologizes. jenna just claims it was a bad mental health day.

if tyler’s father notices another vodka bottle missing, he doesn’t ask about it.

**february 2019**

february is a shit month.

school gets canceled for two weeks, leaving tyler to itch to get out of the house, even though he’s painfully introverted. his depression reaches maximum level again, and jenna doesn’t really seem to talk to him anymore because she’s “busy”. he rips the postcard on the ceiling in a fit of rage.

bullshit she’s busy. he was never busy in freshman year.

she also accuses him of cheating on her with josh. tyler’s understandably pissed.

they ignore each other for a week until they get into a huge fight, resulting in their break up. jenna keeps indirecting him on instagram even though tyler has said before that he doesn’t like that.

they get into another fight, and tyler realizes that he just has to block jenna and move on.

he cries to josh (again), and he realizes that he’ll be okay, because josh is his best friend.

  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading
> 
> edit: 17/4/2020  
removing the gift tags and social media links, now orphaning this fic completely. this story can easily be traced back to me because of how personal it is (even with the changed names) so i will protect myself and orphan it


End file.
